Facts

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia occupies a large part of the Arabian Peninsula and thereby forms its center. In the south, there are Yemen and Oman, in the east the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the island of Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq and Jordan in the north. In the west, there is the Red Sea.

Saudi Arabia is well-known as an oil-rich country and has the world’s largest oil reserves after Venezuela. Whereas the oil and petrochemical industry is located in the eastern province on the Arabian Gulf, the capital Riyadh is the political and economic center of the country. The port city of Djiddah on the Red Sea is Saudi Arabia’s trading center.

The oil sector generates 42 percent of the gross domestic product and 90 percent of Saudi Arabia’s export earnings. Mainly oil and petrochemical products are exported to Germany. Mainly chemical products, machines and vehicle parts are imported from Germany.

The country is divided into 13 provinces, in the central area (Naschd) are: Ar-Riyadh, Al-Qasim and Ha'il, in the north Al-Hudud Asch-Shamaliyya and Al-Jawf, in the west (Hejaz) Tabuk, Medina, Mecca and Al-Baha, in the south Asir, Jazan and Najran and in the east Ash-Sharqiyya.

With 34.8 million inhabitants, among them 37 percent are foreigners, Saudi Arabia is the largest market in the Gulf region.